Another Arrighetti start, another Astros loss
For some reason, this guy just hasn’t been the same since those first eight starts. Since entering the month of June, he has only allowed less than three runs once. The team is 2-5 in those starts, including today’s loss to the Nationals 8-2.
He started well in the first two innings, allowing three baserunners, two of them walks, but not allowing a run to score. That was until the third when things started to unravel.
After walking the first two batters, two of his six walks on the day, Arrighetti got the next two outs but allowed a run to score on a sac fly. This started a stretch that pushed the Nats ahead 5-0 by the end of the fourth.
The Astros got one back on an RBI-single from Brice Matthews, but the Nats answered right back with another three-run inning, pushing them ahead 8-1. It was during that inning that Arrighetti got pulled. The final two runs were hit off Alimber Santa, who came in with the bases loaded and no outs
The final run of the game came from the Astros off the bat of Nick Allen to push the score to its final, but it didn’t matter much at that point. The Astros had already lost.
There is a really good takeaway from this game somehow and that is the bullpen.
Between Santa, Nate Pearson and Christian Javier, who made his second relief appearance since coming off the IL, the Astros got four innings of scoreless baseball with just two hits. They also had the same problem that Arrighetti did though with the walks, with four between them.
The Astros will have the day off tomorrow before heading to Arlington to face the Rangers in the final series of the first half.
Feature photo from @astros on X, Source Link
We have ourselves a massive starting rotation problem again, reminiscent of the start of April. Starters can’t get to the 5th, we burn our bullpen up, and Peter Lambert freaking deals. No, Weiss and Burrows are gone, but Spencer has taken up the mantle of bad. While all this is happening, Hunter has looked……bad. And if we got a preview tonight, expect more of the same Ol’ Javier. I don’t even want to get started with crazy Imai.
Arrighetti seems to be different. Burrows and Imai were kind of up a little and down a lot. Arrighetti went from hero to zero in one month. That to me spells arm injury. I beg to be wrong.
I think arrighetti was incredibly incredibly lucky a lot in May. if you compare the may and june peripherals he was pretty much the same in june and may, and in some cases even a little better in june; he was striking out more batters.
but all those incredible escape he made where he would strand all the walks he was giving because the defense, particuarly the outfielders were making ridiculous plays, that luck factor swung far the other way and we ended up with 2 extremes, a 0.93 era and a 9 era off of nearly identical xwobas.
if it were an arm injury, id expect his velo to have dipped but it was the same for both months as well.
Don’t forget that Arighetti used to feature 97. That spaghetti with heat is now a distant memory. I don’t think he’s fully recovered from the injury sustained near the end of last season.
Arrighetti has received the best fielding behind him of any Astros’ pitcher. He has +4 Fielding Run Value. Maybe that affected his earlier luck. On the other extreme, DLS and Burrows had the worst fielding behind them– -4 and -3 respectively.
yeah, hunter… there’s no way to pull off this season without hunter being at least a #2 level if not an ace.